May 7, 2010: North Providence, FBI arrests 3 councilors on charges of extortion

Wednesday

Oct 23, 2013 at 3:09 PM

The special meeting of the North Providence Town Council was called to order with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. It ended with a controversial vote to allow a Stop & Shop supermarket across from North Providence High School - a vot

MIKE STANTON

The special meeting of the North Providence Town Council was called to order with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence.

It ended with a controversial vote to allow a Stop & Shop supermarket across from North Providence High School - a vote, the FBI alleges, that was greased with a $25,000 bribe later that night from the principal of a real-estate development company to three North Providence councilmen.

The developer, according to Town Council records reviewed by the Journal, is prominent and controversial Rhode Island businessman Richard Baccari, the president of Churchill & Banks in Providence.

As a result, the three councilmen found themselves one member short of a quorum Thursday in a federal cellblock, charged with extortion and bribery.

It was a fourth council member who turned them in after a conversation overheard in a Florida bar, according to court papers, playing along with the alleged bribery scheme while secretly tape recording his conversations for the FBI.

According to an FBI affidavit unsealed in court Thursday, the cooperating councilman taped a conversation with council member John A. "Zam" Zambarano who said the developer promised, "You deliver four votes, and I'll give you $25,000."

Shortly after dawn Thursday, the FBI arrested Council President Joseph Burchfield, 42, and council members Zambarano, 47, and Raymond L. Douglas III, 42. Later in the day, after an appearance before Magistrate David Martin, the three were released on $50,000 unsecured bonds.

The council member who pretended to sell his vote on the Stop & Shop deal was not identified by federal prosecutors, but appears to be Paul Caranci, who also is Rhode Island's deputy secretary of state under Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, a former North Providence mayor.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in court on Thursday, the unidentified council member first learned of the bribery scheme after attending a National League of Cities conference in Orlando, Fla., where the three defendants discussed it.

Caranci is the only current council member, aside from the three arrested Thursday, who attended the conference, according to Journal interviews with North Providence officials.

The affidavit also alleges that a North Providence lawyer who represented the developer delivered the bribe to Zambarano in the deserted parking lot of a Cranston restaurant, Antonio's, after the Feb. 10, 2009, council meeting at which the zoning change was approved.

Town records show that Robert Ciresi, a former North Providence town solicitor, represented Baccari before the Town Council. Ciresi's son Michael, a former North Providence police officer, was sentenced in 2008 to 20 years in prison for his role in local burglaries.

More arrests are possible.

"The investigation leading to these charges has been ongoing for some time, and it continues," said U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha, at a news conference. "I want to emphasize that anyone with knowledge related to the conduct alleged in the affidavits would do well to reach out to the FBI in the very near future."

News of the arrests sent shockwaves through beleaguered North Providence, where a budget crisis has made it difficult to meet payroll in the past year. The town of 33,000 has a history of political chicanery that includes such notable figures as former state Sen. John A. Celona, who went to federal prison in 2007 for selling his office, and the late longtime Mayor Salvatore Mancini, who was acquitted in 1994 of attempting to extort $2,000 from a condominium developer. A bust of Mancini adorns the town library.

At noon, while Burchfield, Zambarano and Douglas awaited their court appearances, Mayor Charles Lombardi and other town officials gathered in the council chambers for a previously scheduled National Day of Prayer service.

"I'm saddened for their families," said Councilman Frank A. Manfredi, of the three arrested. "But I'm also saddened for the residents of this town. I feel they were bilked. It hurts our credibility as we're trying to get out of this [financial] mess.

"If it were me [arrested], I'd resign immediately. I would be ashamed to walk into the Town Council chambers."

Burchfield, Zambarano and Douglas hurriedly left the courthouse, pushing through a throng of reporters and photographers. A man who drove Zambarano snarled at the media throng around their car: "Get outa the way - you're gonna get run over."

Burchfield, the son of local boxing promoter Jimmy Burchfield and a boxing commentator, was suspended later in the day from his $52,927-a-year job as a constituent liaison for the Rhode Island Senate, a job he landed in March 2007, when North Providence Democrat Joseph A. Montalbano was Senate president.

Beginning in the late summer of 2008, Baccari sought to develop a Stop & Shop supermarket on Plympton Street on land opposite North Providence High School, near the intersection of Mineral Spring Avenue.

In November, Baccari appeared at an informational session at the high school, telling 150 residents who were skeptical or opposed to the project that if the Town Council approved a zoning change, he could begin construction within months.

Baccari was asking the town to rezone a portion of the 6-acre site from residential general to commercial. The president of the nearby Oak Crest Village Condominium Association, retired Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Caldarone, complained that the project would make a bad traffic situation worse and decrease neighborhood property values.

"I've been developing properties for 40 years," said Baccari. "We would not be proposing this if we did not think it will work."

Through a sweeping and controversial career, Baccari has overseen major developments in Rhode Island and beyond, rising from high-school dropout in Providence's North End to an expansive house on the ocean in Narragansett and a Rolls Royce. Along the way, he was dogged by bankruptcies, foreclosures, bank failures, lawsuits and investigations, including his ties to a corrupt ex-governor, Edward D. DiPrete. When DiPrete supported Baccari's controversial efforts to develop luxury condos on Narragansett's Black Point, critics snuck into the State House and hung a 15-foot banner on the marble dome, "Gov. Bacarri?," misspelling his name.

Churchill & Banks has built Stop & Shop supermarkets in Warwick and North Kingstown. Baccari is currently seeking to build a Stop & Shop in Cranston, near the banks of the Pawtuxet River in a neighborhood that flooded during last month's great floods, shutting down a Shaw's supermarket across the street.

According to the Churchill & Banks Web site, "The three critical elements of successful real estate development are location, cost control and leverage."

The 16-page FBI affidavit, which reads like a script ripped from a television crime thriller, alleges that the developer of the North Providence Stop & Shop sought to employ an illegal form of leverage - cash bribes.

In November, while Baccari was appearing at the public meeting in North Providence, a delegation of North Providence officials was in Orlando for the National League of Cities convention that ran from Nov. 11-15.

Caranci, identified in the FBI affidavit only as Confidential Source #1, went to dinner in Florida on Nov. 12 with others from North Providence, including Burchfield, Zambarano and Douglas. Afterward, while CS#1 returned to his hotel room, an unidentified town official joined Burchfield, Zambarano and Douglas for drinks, and overheard Zambarano tell the other two councilmen that he hoped the Stop & Shop deal would go through soon because he "hoped to get the money for Christmas."

After returning to Rhode Island, the town official allegedly told Caranci. Then, on Jan. 27, 2009, with a council vote approaching, Caranci allegedly telephoned Zambarano, and recorded the conversation.

"During the conversation, CS#1 mentioned Zambarano's comments in Florida ... CS#1 told Zambarano that CS#1 needed money and was willing to sell CS#1's vote on the council to be included in the scheme," the affidavit says.

"Why can't you guys include me in this stuff ... You just turn a blind eye here and there ... I'm willing to do that ... I'd rather be part of the group, than against everybody all the time," Caranci allegedly told Zambarano.

On Feb. 9, the day before the vote, Caranci allegedly met face-to-face with Zambarano, who allegedly told him that he had convinced Burchfield and Douglas to cut him in.

"You come tomorrow night ... if you go along with the show and go along with everything, we'll give you $4,000," the affidavit quotes Zambarano as saying. "I'm gonna tell you it was 25 divided by 3. So we're not getting much more than you are."

The affidavit says that Zambarano also said that he, Burchfield and Douglas had been involved in other "similar corrupt practices," and that they intended to solicit future bribes, including payoffs for a liquor license should the developer pursue plans to build a restaurant in the Stop & Shop parking lot.

"I've known Joey [Burchfield] for 30 years ... me and Ray [Douglas] became really good friends," the affidavit quotes Zambarano as saying. "I never talked to you about things like this in the 13 years we were on that council ... and Joey says, 'You sure?' ... I said, 'The guy was with us in Florida … he knew exactly what we were talking about … so shame on us, and I give him credit for calling me and approaching me with it."

Zambarano went on to discuss the bribe, noting that the developer wasn't "giving us anything until after the meeting … I'm getting it tomorrow night."

When Caranci allegedly raised concerns that taking the bribe would mean the developer would "own you," Zambarano allegedly answered, "See, they're breaking the law, just like we are."

On Feb. 10, the council met and approved zoning change by a 7-0 vote. Later that night, the affidavit says, the FBI followed Zambarano as he drove home, switched vehicles, then drove to Antonio's Restaurant in Cranston, where he called the developer's lawyer on his cell phone. Within minutes, the lawyer's car pulled into the parking lot and pulled alongside Zambarano's car for about three minutes, then left.

Agents then followed Zambarano to Douglas's house, at 50 Sampson Ave. About 20 minutes later, at 11:07 p.m., the affidavit says, Burchfield left Douglas's house. The next day, Zambarano allegedly met with Caranci, gave him $4,000 and said that he had met with Douglas and Burchfield at Douglas's house the night before and paid them their portion of the bribe.

During that meeting, which the FBI says it secretly recorded with video and audio, Zambarano allegedly said that Burchfield had praised him, saying, "Hey, Zam, you really orchestrated this great."

Eight months later, on Oct. 14, 2009, Caranci allegedly met with Zambarano and Burchfield at a North Providence ice-cream parlor that Zambarano owned. At that meeting, which was also secretly recorded, Burchfield and Zambarano sought to assure CS#1 that they would include him "in future bribes," the affidavit says.

The Stop & Shop was never built, and the site remains dormant today. There was no indication in court papers that the grocery-store chain was aware of the events alleged by prosecutors.

A Stop & Shop spokeswoman, Faith S. Weiner, said that the company "evaluated a potential location" in North Providence more than a year ago, but it didn't "meet our standard financial requirements. In addition, we determined that many potential customers in this area were already Stop & Shop customers shopping in nearby sister stores."

Caranci was out of state on vacation until next Tuesday, according to the secretary of state's office. Manfredi said that he and Caranci have been allies in questioning wasteful spending and questionable deals, often with frustrating results.

"Paul and I have been fighting things done wrong since we've been on the council together," said Manfredi. "We wanted to pass a code of ethics, but [Burchfield, Zambarano and Douglas] didn't want any part of that.